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Sunday, September 1, 2019

Newsletter #6: September 2019

Hello friends! I'll spare you the details of how much fun I had by the lake this summer and get straight to the good part: it's almost Spoopy Season. I am going to a work conference in New Orleans in a few weeks, and it has been a lifelong dream of mine to travel to New Orleans, so I plan to spoop it up in the Big Easy with a healthy dose of haunted places...and food, history, magick, music, and that other kind of spirits. Here is a recap of summer fun, as well as what's coming up next for me this fall:

Recent Publications

"Lakeview, Chicago,"tinywords Issue 19.1Summer 2019Fellow poet Gabriel Rosenstock translated one of my haiku into Irish. You can hear it by pasting the Irish text into this synthesizer:shrunken tumors...the sun-painted wallsof my childhood roomsiadaí craptha...ballaí sheomra m'óigepéinteáilte ag an ngrian("shrunken tumors" was first published in Acorn: a journal of contemporary haiku #26, 2011)

Upcoming Publications

The chapbook of poetry I have been working on, apparitions, is still hanging in the balance as I await news from publishers. The collection has taken on several variations since I first conceptualized it and put out a call for contributions in 2017. I was hoping for news by the end of the summer, but more realistically it might be news by the end of the year. This tiny book that will likely top out around 40 pages has taken more than three years of crushing anxiety, hard work, fear, and sadness (speckled with brief intermittent moments of jarring gratification) to complete. I am looking forward to making it happen but want to find a good home for it first, so please be patient as the project continues to inch forward.

Likewise, good news may be coming down the pipeline, and is timelier than ever, for the anthology about the lives and experiences of children detained at the U.S.-Mexico border, which I was asked to co-edit and contribute a piece to. In the meantime, I am waiting on two other poetry publications to come through, and look forward to sharing those with you soon.

Join me at the Chicago Ghost Conference in October!

Recent Appearances

The Scary Stories documentary is now available on DVD and streaming on Amazon Prime Videoand all major VOD platforms! Word on the street is that you can even find it at Walmart. I also got a chance to see theScary Stories to Tell in the Dark movie, and really enjoyed it!As always,Season 2 and Season 3 of The R.I.P. Filesare available on Amazon Prime Video. Season 2 has been airing again on Really TV in the UK and continues to stream on UKTV Play. The show is also streaming on Apple TV, Pluto TV's Conspiracy Channel, Xfinity X1 andXfinity Stream's Gaia Channel, and other VOD platforms.I was delighted to learn that I am also a featured author on Illinois photographer, historian, and cemetery enthusiast Angie Johnson's Beneath Our Illinois Roots website.

Upcoming Appearances

Jonathan and I spent some time in Baraboo, Wisconsin this spring filming for a new Travel Channel haunted history program that will likely air at the end of October. I don't know firm details or even what the name of the program will be, but I will be announcing them far and wide as soon as I do! I spoke on the topic of Native American burial mounds in and around Wisconsin, and we shared some ghostlore from the Baraboo area. I also did some consulting this summer for Season 2 of Travel Channel's Paranormal 911, and am looking forward to seeing that air in the near future. Here are my other fall appearances, not including ghost tours. My plate is overfull, so I am taking it easy this year: